Tense
I'm so done with the imperfect,
salty for the second chance,
undone by the pluperfect,
ready for the goldilocks
just right with the right now,
left with the one too
soon sleeping in my bed.
And she looks just like me.
I'm so ready for the beta jack
hooked on the slack line
improv with the perfect
2020 pretest release.
Steepside Life
Rain buttons the water-tight bug pond,
slow enough to can't hear it drop
on a tin roof Sunday.
All the time in the world
helps water wash us away.
It slickens the hillside briar
on the loam crawl down.
My yard's on its own
way into town, tangling the neighbors
on the long slide.
In a hundred years we'll all be valley
Glowworms
Vespina Yellowjacket
troubles the drunk pulp
unplucked deliquescent mango.
Its flesh turns sugar in ferment,
Bugs rattle in the open air,
the squeaking ankle rasp
amidst a mad halo
of chitinous wings.
Envenomed, we
forestall intoxication
until anaphylaxsis
opens your mouth.
You can light your tongue
as I lit mine
with the luminous imago.
Glowworms eat us from within.
Poker Face
The abrupt scrape of his hand
across the harp of her hair,
A plucked duet with a head
in the mirror,
she drags red paste across her lips,
coloring outside the lines.
Pastel creams occlude
the creases of her startled smile.
He caught her dreaming,
a different hand, redealt
a flush, the knave of hearts
and all his friends.
The Met We Night
Right when you reached
across the bench seat
past the four on the floor
to tap my unfamiliar hand
coaxing the hex out
of my familar
tense on the wheel
I knew a stronger man
would let you down
at the light
call it a stop a sign
the wrecked mad cast
of yr hazel two-step saccade
yr brittle unblonde
over-dry and radiant flare
baked I could smell the leavening
still rise we rose
as one I lost my chance
and lied the go-ahead
while looking for some level ground
to enter you
escape yr grasp
in a patch of dune grass
Jack Darrow
